ALMOST 3,000 GIRLS living in Ireland could be at risk of undergoing female genital mutilation. FGM refers to the ritual cutting or removal of some or all of the external female genitalia. The practice is most common in Africa, Asia and the Middle East, and carried out for cultural or religious reasons. Unicef data states […]

In Sri Lanka the legal marriage age is 18, but under a decades-old community law, much younger Muslim girls can get married. As calls grow for this law to be amended, BBC Sinhala’s Saroj Pathirana meets one young girl forced to marry against her will. When Shafa* was 15, she was forced to get married. […]

Authorities charged a Michigan mother Wednesday for helping to commit female genital mutilation on girls as young as seven. Tahera Shafiq, a 48-year-old wife and mother, now faces charges for aiding and abetting the practice and conspiring to commit genital mutilation in a growing case against three other Michigan doctors, reports CNN. Federal prosecutors allege […]

A STUDENT from Coleg Gwent has won a high-profile award for her work raising awareness of female genital mutilation (FGM) and forced child marriage. Sheila Jerome is studying children’s care, learning and development at Coleg Gwent’s City of Newport campus. Drawing on her own experiences, she has also made it her life’s mission to spread […]

Hulu and Channel 4’s The Handmaid’s Tale is awash with chilling moments, but one that was added for the TV adaptation stood out as particularly affecting last night. When Ofglen (Alexis Bledel) was carted away in a black van, it turned out not to be because of her Mayday connections but down to her rule-breaking […]

Two brothers who kept their mother and sister as slaves and forced them to wash in a small bucket of water have been put behind bars for more than two years. Faisal Hussein, 25, and Arbaaz Ahmed, 19, told their family members they were not allowed to turn on the taps at the property in […]

A wife suspected of poisoning her cheating husband in an attempted ‘honour killing’ walked free from court with her smiling wheelchair-bound partner after he claimed he did it himself. Mussarat Khan, 55, was accused of slipping arsenic into the food or drink of 50 year-old Tariq Khan for shaming the family by having an affair. […]

The United Nations Children’s Fund, UNICEF and the United Nation Population Fund, UNFPA in collaboration with the Ebonyi State Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development yesterday has commenced the training of partners and educators from the 3 Female Genital Mutilation FGM high burden Local Government Areas of the State to mainstream FGM in their […]

Many girls in Essex have suffered female genital mutilation (FGM), according to a report from the NSPCC. Figures released by the NHS show 15 women had been seen to have suffered the illegal procedure between January and March of this year in the county. FGM, which is sometimes known as female circumcision, is an unnecessary […]